My Beloved Daughters
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Four times, down the ages, that Tania didn't recognize her Faerie mother ... and the one time she finally did.


My Beloved Daughters

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Faerie Path series

Copyright: Allan Frewin Jones

1597

Ann Burbage's small white face shone with sweat in the smoky light as she lay on her straw mattress. Her red curls were plastered to her cheeks; the fever had worn her down until her cheekbones stood out sharply, giving her the gruesome appearance of a child's skeleton.

Diana, the herbalist, stepped back from the bed and picked up her basket, turning to Master Burbage with a regretful spread of her hands.

"The child is fading," she said softly. "She is past hope of cure. I am sorry."

Bess, the child's nurse, who had been sitting on a stool at the foot of the bed, buried her face in her apron and began to sob.

"My poor darling," she wailed. "Why must this be her fate? Why now? Oh Lord, have mercy!"

Master Burbage's hand went to his rosary as he turned his face to the wall.

"Aya," said Diana. "May the Lord have mercy on the child's soul, and welcome her into His kingdom. Be comforted, Master Burbage, Mistress Bess. Her immortal soul is freed."

As the healer collected her small fee, left the house and walked down the cobblestoned streets, she pulled up the hood of her green cloak disguise the tears burning in her own eyes. They couldn't know how true her words were … they couldn't know that even so, her heart was breaking along with theirs as she watched her daughter die.

*

1857

"Look out!"

Lady Helen Seabourne looked up from her sketch-pad, where she had been drawing the pigeons around a fountain at Hyde Park, to find a wooden hoop careering straight towards the bench where she sat, pursued by a little boy in a sailor suit.

With a smile, she caught the hoop just in time and handed it back to the boy, smiling.

"Have a care with that, dear," she said.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, with a funny little bow. "I will!"

"Henry!"

A young woman in a lavender gown and bonnet, followed by a little girl in white with long pigtails tied in green ribbon, came hurrying to catch up with the boy.

"You must stop running ahead like this, child," said the woman breathlessly, her lungs straining against the corset she wore. "I cannot keep up!"

"I want the hoop," said the girl, tugging at her mother's skirt. "It's _my_ turn."

"Now, Flora," said the mother, with one more exasperated sigh. "You know I can't have you getting your new frock dirty. Oh, pardon me, madam, have my children been disturbing you?"

Lady Helen had to tear herself away from the face of the little girl. Flora. Her hair was blonde this time, like her mortal mother's; was her Faerie spirit weakening? But the face was still the same – the full lips, straight nose, arched eyebrows, smoky-green eyes.

She was healthy this time, and looked well-to-do. There was no reason why she shouldn't live to sixteen … _Oh, angels of mercy, let her live._

"Madam?"

The confused face of Flora's mother jolted her out of the moment. Of course. She was a stranger here.

"No," she said. "No, indeed, they are not disturbing me."

*

1907

"But I don't want you to go!" sobbed Gracie Williams, clinging to her nanny as they stood in the doorway of Gracie's bedroom. "Why must you go, Nanny Bobbins?"

Lucy Bobbins crouched down and cupped Gracie's face in her hands. "I don't want to leave you either, sweetheart," she said. "But you see, there have been rumors about us. We look so much alike, you see," she turned Gracie's shoulders until they stood in front of the mirror at Gracie's little pink vanity table. Two green-eyed redheads, Gracie's soft, round features becoming more defined, more like Lucy's, every year.

"People think you're my real daughter, Gracie, and that your mama and papa are keeping a secret from them. Also, they think there's something uncanny about me because I still have no wrinkles."

"Is there? Something uncanny, I mean?" Gracie's eyes were huge with curiosity.

She faked a laugh. "Of course not. Just cold cream and a good night's sleep."

"Can't you tell them?"

She kissed the little girl on the cheek. "Oh, my darling, if only it were that simple!"

Her voice trembled a little, and she wiped away a tear with one white-gloved hand.

"Now," picking up her carpetbag and adjusting her rose-covered hat, "I really must fly, or I won't catch the next train. Be a good girl for me, won't you, Gracie? And behave yourself with your next governess."

"No." The little girl's lip pushed forward in a mutinous pout. "I'll hate her. I'll hate her every minute because she isn't you."

Lucy Bobbins left the house on Spenser Road to the sound of a little girl's shrill wails.

*

2007

Sixteen. Anita Palmer was sixteen today. Lilith Mariner's hands trembled on the steering wheel of her black Lexus as she peered out of its tinted window at the house. It was a small red-brick building in a row of other's exactly like it, with a gray Volvo sitting in the drive and a white lilac bush at the front. James, her chauffeur, was standing at the doorway in his gray uniform, exchanging words she couldn't hear with a chubby little woman in a flowered housedress.

Lilith had sent the Soul Book to this address only the day before. Had Anita received it? Had she read it? How in all the worlds would she react to having a strange woman in a fancy car appear and claim to be her mother? Lilith had rarely been so nervous in all her centuries of existence. Her stomach was in knots. She was almost afraid to breathe.

After five hundred years of heartbreaking near misses, here was her one chance to find Tania.

The stranger shook her head and closed the door. James came back, his face unreadable. Lilith lowered the window.

"Well?"

"Sorry, ma'am." He said. "It seems the young lady's had an accident. Boating on the Thames. Got to the hospital and disappeared from there; no one's seen her since then."

He gave his employer a quizzical look, but said nothing. He had no idea why she would care so much about a strange young girl; he probably had his own theories, but being a trustworthy man, he kept them strictly to himself.

Lilith leaned her head on the steering wheel; her shoulders shook. She wanted to throw back her head and_ scream_, or else smash something.

_So close! Curse it, I was so close! If she's dead …. Dead on her sixteenth birthday … oh my God, the prophecy! She'll never be reborn again. It's too late …oh, Tania, it's too late!_

"Get me back to the flat, James," she ordered, with all the self-posession of a Queen. Her heart might be breaking, her daughter might be lost forever, but her chauffeur should not know.

*

2007

Back early from her business trip to Beijing, Lilith kicked off her Prada heels, peeled off her tight pantyhose and threw herself onto the sofa. She stared out the window of her little white flat, at the greenery of Bushy Park and the roof of Hampton Court Palace. If she half-shut her eyes, she could almost believe she was looking at her home …

Home. The Faerie Palace. Did she even know what home was? Were her memories still true? Oberon's warm hands and hearty laugh, the butterfly kisses of her little girls, the running feet and small domestic accidents she remembered … were they distorted by the long centuries of waiting?

Had she done right?

For one lost daughter, she had abandoned the other six, and her King and people along with it. Had she made a terrible mistake? Was the kingdom coping without her? She knew her Oberon – he pretended to be so strong and mighty, needing nothing but his wisdom and his Mystic Arts, but his power depended so much on being loved … he needed her …

She barely heard it the first time the buzzer rang. She hauled herself up, preparing to politely excuse the missionary or door-to-door salesman or whoever it might be. The voice that crackled through the intercom left her almost speechless.

"Ms. Mariner?" A young girl's voice. An awfully _familiar_ young girl's voice.

"Yes … ?"

"It's Tania … " The voice begin to crack with emotion, barely audible across the crackly intercom. "It's _Tania._"

Lilith Mariner – Titania – hardly knew how she made it through the next couple of minutes. Her throat too choked to speak, she hit the button with a shaky hand and walked out into the hallway, not even remembering to put her shoes back on. She hovered in front of the elevator doors, hands clasped, praying as that one name resounded in her head.

_Tania._

Her daughter was alive and knew her name. Knew both their names.

After five hundred years of searching for her daughter, her daughter had found her.

There was a _bing_, the elevator doors whooshed open, and there they were.

_Four_ of her daughters, wearing Mortal clothes and looking exhausted – Sancha, Cordelia, Zara, and Tania. Standing with them was Gabriel Drake's servant – what was his name? – Chanticleer. Even now, she remembered.

For a long moment, neither of them could speak. They were like a film set on pause, like a colored photograph. She couldn't quite believe it was real.

The young valet moved first, breaking the spell; he stepped out of the elevator and fell to one knee, looking up at her with the awed reverence of a man beholding his sovereign.

"Your most gracious Majesty."

In that moment, Titania unfroze and became a woman again, a woman with a beating heart, tears to shed and arms to reach out, and a voice to gasp out what she had been dreaming of for so long.

"My daughters … my beloeved daughters!"

And she laughed and wept all at once as they rushed into each other's arms.


End file.
